Article Posted on : - Sep 18, 2013

NEW DELHI (PTI): India and the US on Tuesday discussed ways to further boost their defence ties in fields of joint development and production of military hardware amid indications from America that it was willing to liberalise its defence export regime for India.

In a delegation level meeting between US Deputy Secretary of Defence Ashton Carter and Defence Secretary Radha Kant Mathur, the two sides also discussed proposals to buy defence equipment from the US including the C-130J Super Hercules transport aircraft.

The American side discussed a number of co-production and co-development projects during the meeting.

India is likely to ink deals worth several billion dollars with the US during Prime Minister Mamohan Singh's proposed visit there on September 27.

India has also chosen US equipments such as Chinook heavy-lift choppers, Apache 64D attack choppers and M-777 howitzers for its armed forces and the deals are in final stages of negotiation.

The US has said that it was willing to provide the status of very close ally to India.

"What we're doing is in the technology and export controls area, working so that India has the same status as our very closest allies and that our system is operating on a time scale that's consistent with the needs for the Indian side to make decisions," Deputy Secretary of Defence Ashton B Carter had told PTI.

Asserting that the US and India are destined to be partners in the world stage even though their interests do not coincide always, Carter said the Obama Administration is keen to take the India-US defence relationship to the next level and help New Delhi increase indignation of its defence system.

India has emerged as one of the biggest customers of American weaponry in this decade and has since 2003 procured military equipment worth around USD 10 billion from there including C-17 and C-130J transport aircraft, P-8I anti-submarine warfare aircraft and gun-locating ANTPQ-37 radars.